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THE HIGHLANDERS 
OF THE SOUTH 



By 
SAMUEL H. THOMPSON 




NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS 
CINCINNATI : JENNINGS & GRAHAM 






Copyright, 1910, by 
EATON & MAINS 



CCU27S45S 



TO MR. JOHN W. FISHER AND MR. JOHN 
A. PATTEN, WHO, WITH OTHER LOYAL 
LAYMEN IN THE FIELD, HAVE, WITH 
MONEY AND THROUGH PERSONAL SERV- 
ICE, AIDED THE HIGHLANDER OF THE 
SOUTH, THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS APPRE- 
CIATIVELY DEDICATED. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



I From Whence They Come 13 

II Where They Live 19 

III Their Characteristics 26 

IV Their Manners and Customs 29 

V What They Do 34 

VI Their Service 38 

VII What They Do Not Know 44 

VIII The Problem 54 

IX Other Denominations 65 

X The Methodist Episcopal Church 69 

XI The Progress of the South 72 

XII Unto the Last c - 79 



ILLUSTRATIONS 
The Home Place Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

A Genuine "Razorback" 31 

An Old Church in which Methodists Continue to 
Worship 50 

A Weaver and Lover of Cats 79 



FOREWORD 

In the gathering of materials for this brief ac- 
count the writer has sought to strike a happy 
medium between any existing extremes ; he has 
endeavored to be conservative in all things, and 
he has been careful to give only such statements 
as may be readily substantiated. 

With the hope of stirring the people everywhere 
to a deeper sense of their obligation to their less 
fortunate brothers, and with the desire to create 
within the minds of those who can the spirit of 
helpfulness to those who cannot but would if they 
could, is this little volume sent forth. 

Samuel H. Thompson. 

Chuckey, Tennessee. 



INTRODUCTION 

It was a very happy thought on the part of the 
Home Missionary Board to ask Principal Samuel 
H. Thompson to prepare this little volume descrip- 
tive of our work in the South. No one in all my 
acquaintance is better prepared to do such work 
intelligently and effectively than Principal Thomp- 
son. Here he has lived and wrought for years. 
All who know him are deeply impressed with the 
earnestness of his consecration and his splendid 
service to the cause of Christian education in 
Tennessee. 

As our great Church becomes aware of the 
important work being done in this section the re- 
sult is sure to be a lively interest and a more active 
cooperation. 

I am glad to bid this little volume a hearty God- 
speed and to hope for it a mission of blessing to 
many lives. 

William F. Anderson. 



i< 



CHAPTER I 
From Whence They Come 

It is rather singular that a people migratory in 
their habits may be able to trace their ancestry 
for an almost unbroken period of nearly twenty 
centuries. This is still more singular when we 
consider that these people were probably continent 
dwellers to begin with ; later, islanders ; after many 
years they migrated to another island, and thence 
to a great and rapidly developing continent — North 
America. People migratory both by habit and by 
nature usually lose sight of such remote things as 
ancestry and lineage in the nearer and more per- 
sonal interest of posterity and sustenance there- 
for. Moreover, it would not be expected of a 
people in the times of struggle where might makes 
right, of conquest not only for gain but for life 
as well, and of the making of a new home, that 
they should preserve in fullness of detail such 
records. Thus we find little written of the early 
history of this people. 

But from the time of the invasion of Ireland 
about the beginning of the present era by some 
foreign tribes, probably from the European con- 
tinent near by, forty-six in number, who were 
victors on the Hibernian Isle, we have a practically 
unbroken account of the people known to history 
as the Scotch-Irish. Among the tribes above men- 
tioned was one known as the Scotriage, and sub- 
sequently by the Latinized form, Scoti. They 

13 



14 The Highlanders of the South 

seem to have been victors over all other tribes and 
to have led the later invasions of Britain. Early 
they showed advanced elements of thrift and prog- 
ress. Cormac, a chief of the Irish Scoti, is said 
to have introduced, as early as the third century, 
water mills into Ireland, and to have established 
schools for the study of law, military affairs, and 
the annals of the country. Laws attributed to him 
continued in force all through the Middle Ages. Is 
it any wonder that the descendants of such chiefs 
have been always a liberty-loving people ? 

These Scoti chiefs and their progeny continued 
to keep themselves known in the border warfare 
of Ireland and Britain, including Scotland, to which 
country they gave its present name, until the ac- 
cession of James VI of Scotland to the British 
throne in 1603. Some vainly thought at this time 
that because the Irish were the original "Scoti" the 
Scottish king would sympathize with oppressed, 
duke-ridden, and tax-burdened Ireland. But not 
so. Could these same people look upon their 
beloved isle from then to now they would see 
but little difference so far as oppression is con- 
cerned. 

But they did not close their struggles for liberty 
because of discouragement. Forced to take the 
"Black Oath" of Charles I, they continued to be 
objects of oppression, after having again migrated, 
this time from Scotland to Ireland, early in the 
seventeenth century, taking residence in the county 
Ulster, known later as the Ulster Plantation. In 
subsequent persecutions of trade by William III, 
a liberal-minded man but forced as king to sup- 
press, if possible, the Irish woolen trade, the Ulster 



From Whence They Come 1 5 

weavers were not crushed, but rather their industry 
flourished. 

The Scots of Ulster were supplemented by some 
Huguenot refugees, who established manufacturing 
interests in the county. However, a little later 
commercial restraints brought their interests to 
naught. 

The sacramental test of 1704 was seemingly 
just as hurtful to the Scottish Presbyterians in Ire- 
land as to the Irish Catholics, though the former 
defended the town of Londonderry in favor of the 
crown. But the last straw came in 1772, when the 
"Steelboys" rose against the exactions of absentee 
landlords, who often turned out Protestant yeomen 
to get a higher rent from the Roman Catholic 
cottiers. The dispossessed patriots, true to their 
liberty and justice-loving inheritance, migrated to 
the great American continent and carried with 
them an undying hatred of England which had 
much to say in the American Revolution so soon 
to follow. Thus it is seen that not only for 
injustice to America, but to other colonies as well, 
did England have to account. 

Prior to this time, however, many of the Scotch- 
Irish, so called by their having gone from Scotland 
to Ulster, had come to the southeastern coast of 
North America, settling in the Carolinas, some 
of them forming a part of the "Regulators" who 
were defeated by the crown troops under Governor 
Tryon at the battle on the Alamance River early 
in the seventies of the eighteenth century. They 
had again resisted oppressive taxation, the tax this 
time being levied to erect a mansion for the British 
governor. Many of these defeated patriots had 



1 6 The Highlanders of the South 

to flee into more remote sections, not a few going 
into the territory out of which have since been 
carved the States of Tennessee and Kentucky, and 
helping to settle those unbroken forests. 

While a large per cent of the some five millions 
of people in the Southern Appalachians are Scotch- 
Irish, it must not be supposed that all are of that 
descent. There is a strain of other blood, but 
doubtless the oldest strain is Scotch-Irish. Next 
to these people come the Germans and Dutch — 
"Black Dutch" they are called by many. Of more 
recent years many emigrants to these fertile valleys 
and well-timbered hills have been what are known 
locally as "Pennsylvania Dutch," being descend- 
ants of early Dutch and German settlers in the land 
of Pennsylvania. It must not be forgotten that 
among many of the Southern peoples the word 
"Dutch" is meant to imply Germans as well as the 
people from Holland. These settlers, whether of 
the pure German or Dutch strain, prove good and 
valuable additions to the native population, being 
industrious, energetic, thrifty, and economical. In 
many instances they have a trade and ply it well. 
Some of them are potters ; others, carpenters, 
masons, and blacksmiths. Not a few of the early 
German settlers have given able and successful 
ministers, one German family giving four sons to 
this greatly needed profession. Another family of 
German and Scotch-Irish blending has five 
preachers, three sons and two sons-in-law. All of 
these nationalities have contributed to the sturdy 
yeomanry of the country districts. Nor should 
we forget a few French people who came to the 
Western wilderness and contributed their share 



From Whence They Come \J 

in making a fertile field out of a dense forest. 
Sometimes they were refugees; again, they came 
of their own free will, seeking a new country. 
England did not fail to contribute valuable material 
from her overplus of island population — a popula- 
tion whose ancestors under Henry I, Henry HI, 
and King John first received a taste for constitu- 
tional liberty and slept not until possessed by them 
on both sides the Atlantic. 

Perhaps a few other nationalities have come, but 
their influence is not so marked. Once in a great 
while one finds an old Spanish name whose owner 
doubtless descended from some follower of Cortez, 
Pizzaro, or De Soto. 

From such cosmopolitan sources one would 
expect a cosmopolitan people. But such is hardly 
the case, as will be seen later. 

Out of this strange heterogeneous mass there 
has evolved a compact whole presenting a solid 
front against Romanism. Early came the Presby- 
terians, Methodists, and Baptists. It would seem 
that the Methodist Church took the lead among the 
common people. We read from a distinguished 
historian of one of these mountain States, James 
Phelan in his History of Tennessee: "These [the 
Methodists] were fond of touching the emotions 
and feelings of their congregations, and appealed 
directly to their hearts. They brought religion 
home to the hearts of their hearers, whereas 
the old Presbyterians only tried to affect their 
reason by the use of logic and of quotations from 
the Bible, and by expositions of doctrine. The 
Methodists soon outstripped the Presbyterians, 
and have since spread all through the Southwest." 



!8 The Highlanders of the South 

The same writer pays the following tribute to 
the circuit-rider: "The circuit-rider has done more 
to build up, broaden, and strengthen the Methodist 
Church than all other human agencies combined. 
As the number of preachers was insufficient to give 
one to each congregation, it became necessary for 
one preacher to take charge of several churches 
and travel from one place to another. He also at 
times organized new congregations. The circuit- 
rider was generally a man of great bravery, and 
was ready to face death at any time in order to 
advance the cause of religion and to save a soul. 
He was not often a man of much learning, but he 
was pure as a child and kind and gentle. Frequent 
mention is made by some of the early writers of the 
circuit-rider, with his saddlebags, on a rawboned 
horse, plodding unconcernedly through a forest 
where a bullet from an Indian gun might at any 
minute bring him to his death." 

In connection with the establishment of churches 
it is a significant fact that the Roman Catholics 
never gained much ground among these mountain 
people. However, in the opinion of the writer they 
are gaining more now than ever before. They 
are establishing little missions, with the hope of 
making them larger, wherever they can get a few 
souls. In the rapidly growing towns they seek to 
be ready for the newcomers from the North and 
East. In some sections they send out literature 
soliciting financial aid for what they term a worthy 
and needy mission field. All they say may be true, 
but if you are afraid of Romanism get ready to 
combat it at once, and first of all and more effec- 
tively where it finds virgin soil. 



CHAPTER II 
Where They Live 

A CLEAR estimate of any people cannot be 
formed without a knowledge of the natural features 
by which they are surrounded. Topography often 
has as much to do with the formation of character 
as racial inheritances. A man cannot be correctly 
estimated unless the mountains that encompassed 
him or the plains that spread out before his feet 
or the rivers that nourished his vegetation are 
known and measured. It may be that he dwells on 
the highland, where the cool breezes of summer are 
but little more than the breath of winter; or that 
his abode is in the valley, where the rudest blast 
from the fiercest storms never reaches his humble 
but homelike cabin. Perchance he dwells among 
the fertile prairies or rolling lands of the great 
West, whose virgin soil renders him independent 
so far as the goods of this world are concerned. 
But all these things are character-making elements. 

Any good geography will show the natural 
features of North America by the relief maps. The 
Southern Appalachians are seen to be well supplied 
with water whose drainage is most excellent. The 
streams shown on the relief maps are perhaps the 
least important save as a sort of receiving canal 
for the other and smaller streams. In the thou- 
sands of valleys to be found among these moun- 
tains it is doubtful if you find one five miles long 
destitute of running water in some form. Some^ 

19 



20 The Highlanders of the South 

times it is a rapidly flowing stream having its 
source at the head of the valley, or, as sometimes 
occurs, far up on the mountain side gushing forth 
in purity and abundance. And it may be right 
here that an illicit distillery exists and "moonshine" 
whisky may flow as freely and almost as abun- 
dantly as the crystal water. 

In this Appalachian system of about I75,cxx) 
square miles there dwell some four or five millions 
of people who are essentially like other folks, and 
who are first of all patriotic. A century and a 
half ago this was practically an unbroken forest. 
No one east at that time thought habitation in these 
mountains possible, much less probable. It is re- 
membered that General Washington declared that 
if the British should defeat him in the valleys of 
the New England rivers and elsewhere he would 
take his handful of troops beyond the Alleghanies 
and there forever defy approach. 

The Father of his Country was by no means 
alone in regarding the Appalachians as the natural 
western limit of the country, and the formidable 
limit of all progress in the direction of the setting 
sun. It would not be expected that a system of 
mountains so large even as to have its northern 
origin in Newfoundland and its southern disap- 
pearance among the hills of northern Alabama 
would be a barrier to men who braved the Atlantic 
for conscience* sake. Even larger barriers would 
not have deterred them. As population increased 
and men desired more forest area passes were 
found in the mountains and the way was opened 
for the pioneer, the advance guard of civilization. 
Daniel Boone, the noted hunter and trapper, and 



Where They live 2! 

others of his kind who could not endure a neighbor 
so close as five miles kept up a constant search for 
new and untried hunting grounds. It was often 
the purpose of the settlers to make for themselves a 
little place of their own and discourage others 
from taking land near by, thus reserving fertile 
spots for their own kith and kin. 

The mountains are not always high ; nor are the 
valleys always deep. Taking the Appalachians as 
a whole, they vary from a few hundred feet above 
sea level to the lofty height of almost seven thou- 
sand feet, as seen in Clingman's Dome, Mount 
Mitchell, and others. It is true that habitations 
are not found at many places on these highest 
peaks, yet Cloudland, 6,394 feet in height, is a 
great summer resort, and people do live there 
through the winter. The hotel here is built 
directly across the surveyed line between the States 
of North Carolina and Tennessee. 

From some of these mountain streams the smaller 
towns and cities get their water supply, and that 
abundantly, of the purest water known. We know 
one little town whose supply of water comes from 
a mountain spring the estimated capacity of which 
is ten million gallons daily. Another use of these 
rapidly flowing streams is to turn small com mills 
grinding perhaps ten to twenty bushels of meal 
per day. A few turn roller flouring mills, but the 
trade is almost entirely local custom. Recent 
devastation of forests by lumber dealers has 
brought innumerable steam saw mills, whose work 
is not so commendable, because it means not only a 
decrease of our Southern forests but the impover- 
ishment of the land as well. Mr. Graves and his 



22 The Highlanders of the South 

Forestry Commission would do well not merely to 
pass through this section touching only the prin- 
cipal cities, but they should go deep into the moun- 
tains and there see what the onward march of so- 
called civilization has done. 

Aside from the finest of hemlock, poplar, cherry, 
birch, oak, pine, gum, walnut, maple, and almost 
every other species of timber found on this conti- 
nent, many herbs of medicinal properties grow in 
abundance in these regions — even to this day the 
"yarb doctor" is not so uncommon — ginseng, called 
"sang" by the mountain people ; mandrake or may 
apple, mullein, wild indigo, lady's slipper, black 
snakeroot, burdock, lobelia. Poor Robinson's to- 
bacco, catnip, and many other herbs the essences 
of which are often used as simple remedies by these 
people, and frequently with more effect than "doc- 
tor stuff," as the people sometimes derisively refer 
to the medicine given by practicing physicians. 

Many of the useful minerals and some of the 
precious metals are found in these mountains. Not 
infrequently stories are told of men who mine their 
own lead and run their own bullets in the hand- 
ladle for the old-fashioned "bear gun" or smaller 
squirrel rifle. Iron ore is perhaps the most abun- 
dant of the minerals found. The ore produced from 
the mines of these mountains is said to be the 
finest in the United States. In one of these 
valleys there are ridges containing seemingly an 
inexhaustible supply of iron ore assaying ninety-six 
per cent pure iron, said to be the richest known out- 
side of Denmark. Nothing need be said of the 
Virginia coal fields. Their riches are too widely 
known to need comment here. Much zinc is 



Where They Live 23 

found, but not in pockets such as to be of great 
value. Copper is found in some of the States, and 
the mines therein worked to advantage, as at the 
famous Ducktown or Copperhill mines in Tennes- 
see. Phosphate beds are so abundant as to be 
making men rich. No finer marble is in the 
country than here. Tennessee building stone is 
famous throughout the nation. Land plaster (gyp- 
sum) has made many a poor farmer wealthy 
despite his ignorance. Mica, feldspar, hematite, 
and barytes are some of the many other useful 
minerals found. Traces of gold and silver are 
here, but not more than a few hundred thousand 
dollars' worth of these metals have been mined. 
They do not occur in great abundance. 

Every stranger coming here is delighted with 
the sublime scenery. Bishop Foster did not hesi- 
tate to say that it is as grand as any in the Alpine 
regions. Others have testified to the gra.ndevk 
being unsurpassed by the Rockies and other famous 
regions. There are many varieties of valleys and 
hills occasioned by the numerous forms of the 
mountains themselves. It is no uncommon thing 
to be on some of these high peaks basking in the 
sunshine while just below you a few hundred yards 
may be a heavy cloud drenching any mountain 
climber next below it. "The Battle above the 
Clouds" is no myth. 

The climate is most salubrious. People live to a 
great age in these mountains. Their vigor and 
agility are wonderful. We know a man in his 
ninety-sixth year who frequently shaves himself, 
and has no trouble to walk without a cane. The 
story is told of a Northerner coming South in 



24 The Highlanders of the South 

search of health, and, finding- what appeared a 
delightful place in the mountains near Asheville, 
he was about to engage lodging when he came 
in contact with one of the natives in the front yard 
of his own household. The native was shedding 
tears as if in great pain, though he was to all ap- 
pearance threescore and ten. The stranger ac- 
costed him to know the cause of his distress when 
the following conversation took place, as we have 
it: 

"What is the cause of your distress, my friend?" 
said the kindly disposed stranger. 

'Tap whopped me," replied the native. 

"Good gracious, man, where is your father?" 

"Up in the loft puttin' granddad ter bed," was 
the characteristic reply. 

Thus you see people never die in these moun- 
tains. Without more levity, it is more evident 
every year that eventually many parts of these 
mountains will be utilized for the erection of 
sanitariums for the treatment of consumption, 
tuberculosis, bronchitis, and catarrhal diseases. 

With all these attractions, the habitat of the 
Southern Highlander is yet one of seclusion and 
retirement. He really has not much ambition to 
change it. But once he goes a-roaming he may 
stay away for years. In some places he resents the 
coming of the locomotive, and looks upon so tame 
a thing as a pike road as an intrusion into his right- 
ful domain. In many counties not a railroad has 
gone, and may not go for years. The narrow 
mountain public roads are often impassable in 
winter and the rainy season of the spring. Even 
horsemen have a difficult time to get across the 



Where They Live 25 

mountains at such times. The only sure way is on 
foot, and then you may be stopped by swollen 
streams, fallen trees, or other barriers. The bridle 
path is the most convenient and safest of all the 
roads. 

Thus has the horizon of the mountaineer been 
limited by the surrounding mountain tops and the 
heads of the valleys in which his humble dwelling 
has been located. His has been a time of rest 
and peace and quiet. Has he profited by it? 



CHAPTER III 
Their Characteristics 

If you should see a man make the sign of the 
cross before eating you would not need to ask his 
religion ; if you should hear him. say "hadn't ought 
a done that," or *'Cunnel Johnson, suh, of Geo'gia," 
you would at once recognize his home section. 
In the same way would you know the mountain 
man by the way he talks, acts, and has his 
being. 

It does not seem out of place to put loyalty as 
the first of the characteristics by which a man of 
the Southern Appalachians should be known. He 
may not have any Indian blood in his veins, but 
loyalty, to him, can have but one meaning, and that 
never to forget either friend or foe. Likes and 
dislikes without any logical reason save that of an 
unreasoning prejudice have cost many a man his 
county office and many a church its opening wedge 
into a community needing the influence only a 
church could give. It is an old saying that if a 
mountaineer Hkes you he will die for you, and if 
he dislikes you you will in all probability die for 
him. The writer fears this is all too true. Many 
a time has this loyal mountaineer been known to 
travel miles on foot, enduring severe cold and 
pain and often hunger, to warn a friend thought 
to be in danger. Doubtless he would be just as 
zealous in the pursuit of an enemy. He has been 
known to divide his last morsel of food with a way- 

26 



Their Characteristics 2 J 

faring man, be he stranger or acquaintance. What 
greater loyalty could one find anywhere? 

He is essentially a man of the woods, and prefers 
that his surroundings be such. "Store clothes" 
may have come to many of these people, but the 
real mountain man prefers his "double Dutch 
breeches" and his brogan shoes tied with ground- 
hog hide; while his wife, warm-hearted soul that 
she is, wants her "linsey-worsted" basque-and- 
overskirt set off with a little "breakfast shawl" and 
a large kerchief bound over her head. Glowing 
colors appeal to the hardy and simple-hearted 
mountaineers almost as much as to the aboriginal 
tribes on other continents of which w^e hear so 
much from traders and travelers. You often see 
the mountain youth with a red handkerchief about 
his neck, and if it is silk in quality and deep red 
in color he is more the envy of his fellows. Not 
less pleasing are these fast colors to the feminine 
part of the inhabitants, bright red and deep blue 
being their favorite colors. If you doubt this just 
examine the calicoes and notions in a mountain 
country store. It often matters not whether the 
colors are fast or merely passing. The present 
show is sufficient to sell the goods, and that is all 
for which either the merchant or the customer 
seems to care. Shirts, trousers, coat, shoes, socks, 
and hat constitute the wardrobe of the average 
Southern mountaineer. Very few of them wear 
underclothes. They are hardy, and nearly all of 
them have early in life been subjected to some kind 
of hardening process so that they do not mind 
what many of us would term severe hardships. 

Unkemptness, to coin a word, would perhaps be 



28 The Highlanders of the South 

another characteristic of this son of the forest. 
The longer he wears his hair, and the more un- 
combed, the more of a mountain man is he. Just 
a few weeks ago the writer saw a mountaineer come 
in astride of one of four mules drawing a lumber 
wagon. On his head was the characteristic black 
slouch hat covering long, flowing locks of hair as 
black as the hat. His face had not seen razor or 
scissors in months. Would you be surprised to 
know that this man is a mountain correspondent to 
a county newspaper? His letters are not silly, 
by any means, but contain good sense in many 
instances. Of course, they need some editorial cor- 
rection, but they are much better than no letters. 
This man is a typical mountaineer. 

I was about to say illiteracy is another char- 
acteristic, but I shall reserve the discussion on that 
for another chapter. I think it but fair to say 
that the average mountaineer uses tobacco in some 
way; usually it is in all the ways known to man. 
And he knows not when he began to use it. He 
chews, smokes, snuffs, and doubtless sometimes 
eats the weed. Yes, and he drinks the product of 
his still, too. And he will swear some if he has 
occasion. But these also are to be saved for a 
later chapter. 

With all these seemingly conflicting character- 
istics, he is kind, warm-hearted, cheerful, friendly, 
amiable, and gentle as a child. He will go out of 
his way to do you a favor, and you can count him 
a "square man" every day in the week. He will 
go with you to the last ditch, and cross it with you 
if you need him. 



CHAPTER IV 
Their Manners and Customs 

This Southern mountaineer is a queer mixture 
of manners and brusqueness. He would extend to 
you the hospitahty of his home for days at a 
time, but would resent any attempt on your part 
to introduce modern manners even in the most 
limited way, as the following incident will show. 
A gentleman traveling in the mountains sought 
shelter from the night in the humble home of one 
of these honest fellows. He was told that he might 
share the bed with the teacher of the mountain 
*'skule." The stranger graciously accepted the 
conditions and bade his host a pleasant good-night. 
The next morning, thinking to continue in the 
apparent good graces of the owner of the house, 
the stranger saluted him with a cheery "Good- 
morning, sir." 

'T staid hyar last night, tew; yer needn't be 
speakin' ter me, stranger." 

And the good old mountaineer meant just what 
he said. No ceremonies for him. He had spoken 
words of greeting upon the arrival of the stranger 
the afternoon before, and they were enough 
for him even though the visitor should remain 
a guest a whole week. No unnecessary use of 
words for him. One greeting was sufficient for 
all time. 

The mountaineer's manners are brusque and 
often blunt, but beneath the rough exterior there 

29 



30 The Highlanders of the South 

beats the kindliest heart kept in the warmest 
breast any man ever knew. 

Sensitive, too, is this man whose hfe is often one 
of isolation and seclusion. Poverty seldom has a 
thick skin. Let this Highlander of the South but 
think you look upon him as one not up to the best 
as the outside world calls the best, and from that 
moment his manner toward you is cold and indiffer- 
ent, if not impolite. No man — not even an Indian 
— can show more indifference and utter uncon- 
cern for present people and things than can this 
mountaineer when he so chooses. A man at no 
court, be he plenipotentiary or a mere attache, 
needs more diplomacy and tact and ability than 
does the man who comes to reach this untutored 
child who has within him so much latent force, 
strong and vigorous but undeveloped. Approach 
him in the right way and you forever have the key 
to his life, his habits, his hopes, his ambitions, and 
all that he holds dear. But approach him without 
skill, foresight, and judgment, and you are at once 
tightly barred from ever gaining this entrance so 
much sought and so badly needed. 

In his habits, manners, and customs he is almost 
primitive. The hand loom is by no means a thing 
of the past ; nor is the hand grater for making corn 
meal. The geared or yoked oxen may be seen at- 
tached to a wooden plow. You can yet find the 
puncheon floor and buildings covered with boards 
held on by poles and logs and even rocks. Crude 
utensils for tilling the soil may yet be found. Many 
horseshoes and plow points — "bull tongues" — are 
made in the ordinary blacksmith shop or forge. 
Split baskets and splitbottom chairs are made by 



Their Manners and Customs 3 1 

these people, and they decorate their baskets with 
gay colors made from their own compound of 
bark, ooze, and wood coloring. Not a few make 
their own shoes, and almost all stockings are home- 
knit. Leather is tanned often at a little bark yard 
whose capacity is from one to ten hides per day or 
less. Harness or "gears," saddles, and other out- 
fits for horses are made at home by the oil lamp, 
or perhaps oftener by the light from the pine torch. 
He gets his meal at the little mountain mill, and his 
flour, the little he uses, at a river mill some dis- 
tance from home. When it comes to a question of 
milling he usually carries his grist on his shoulders 
to the mill and returns with it in the same manner. 
His meat or bacon he raises himself, seldom 
butchering anything but a "razorback," a term sug- 
gested by the thinness of the animal and also by 
the length of its nose. Needless to say that this 
species of swine is of mixed blood. He comes to 
his present state, however, largely by lack of care. 
Never does he get any food save acorns and chest- 
nuts and fruit from such other trees as the woods 
of the hills and mountains afford. From this for- 
aging direct is the hog butchered and used for 
food. Now and then he is fed for a week or two 
before going to grace the table of this man who 
likes his corn pone and bacon. 

Our mountaineer is a great lover of fun. Per- 
haps nothing keeps him from sleep. Responsibil- 
ities rest lightly upon his shoulders. If he has a 
neighbor a mile away he is happy. One in speak- 
ing distance would make him no happier. No ten- 
cent moving-picture performance or magic-lantern 
show comes close without getting him for a patron. 



32 The Highlanders of the South 

He also goes to the county site to see the circus. 
It is interesting on "show day" to watch them come 
in all sorts of conveyances, from the pedestrian to 
the wagon drawn by mules, horses, or oxen. Not 
infrequently will you see one ox hooked to a wagon 
taking the mountaineer and his family to see the 
elephant. Here again you see the prevalence of 
gay, gaudy colors. This mountain man will spend 
all his savings at the circus. Sometimes he is 
caught by the "three pea" man; again it is the 
"wheel." He is great to take a game of chance. 
He will also "take in" the big circus. Recently a 
showman exhibiting in this mountain territory, 
after a prosperous day, remarked, "There are 
more fools and fifty-cent pieces in this county than 
anywhere we have been save one place," and 
he named a county in another mountain State. 
If our mountain friend has meal enough for a 
day or two he is not going to worry about the 
rest. He believes in letting every day provide 
for itself. 

In the heart of these mountains you find the old- 
fashioned wood-chopping and "quilting bee" where 
the men cut wood and the women quilt. In the 
afternoon or evening the young folks gather for 
what they ordinarily term a "frolic," meaning a 
gathering where they are free to play all sorts of 
games, often dancing to the music of the violin or 
banjo. The man who plays the fiddle or picks the 
banjo is the hero of the occasion. He bears his 
honors lightly, but the flaming red silk kerchief 
inartistically knotted at the throat together with 
his musical instrument is his badge of authority. 
Everyone present looks up to him. He is usually 



Their Manners and Customs 33 

the most dignified person present, seldom speaking 
unless spoken to. 

It is also the custom of these mountain folk to 
want to know all about any newcomer or stranger 
who may be passing through. We have known 
them to ask the traveler who he was, his business in 
that part of the country, and whether or not he 
meant to remain in the settlement overnight. We 
knew one of the women to ask one of our Home 
Missionary women who happened by accident to 
be her traveling companion how long she meant to 
stay, and what was her business, and she capped the 
conversation by saying, "An' what did ye brung 
with ye?" 

Right here we might say a word about what this 
man eats. He is not very choice of food. Nor is 
he particular as to the quality of the cooking. The 
women resent the coming of the cooking school, 
and think if they cook like their mothers it ought to 
be good enough for anyone. The writer visited a 
District Conference in one of these mountain dis- 
tricts in an official capacity. He was assigned to 
the home in which the district superintendent — then 
called presiding elder, locally, "The Elder" — was 
being entertained. It was, of course, considered 
the best home in that community. There was not 
a carpet on the floor. The women of the house 
wore no shoes — went barefoot. Our food was 
corn pone and poorly baked flour pone, cane mo- 
lasses, meat broiled until it swam in its own grease, 
a thick-crusted pie, and some sort of jelly which 
shall be nam.eless. No greater work can be done 
by any Church than to improve the culinary habits 
of these people. 



CHAPTER V 

What They Do 

I DO not want to say that this man is lazy or 
indolent or shiftless, for he is not exactly either 
of these, but rather a combination of all. A few- 
years ago the writer of this said in the columns of 
a Southern magazine that the average man of the 
South does not actually work more than half the 
time. That statement has not been contradicted. 
This applies all over the South, and is no more true 
of the man of the mountains than of the man who 
dwells in the fertile valleys away from any moun- 
tains at all. Some think that genius is the result 
of rest, being accumulated by atavism through suc- 
cessive generations. If this be true the South, in 
the opinion of the writer, should produce more 
geniuses than any part of the country; for we do 
rest. There are such extremes of poverty and 
wealth, ignorance and culture, in the South that it 
is difficult to classify them properly for all classes. 
You find the wealthy landowner dwelling in an 
elegant house on a farm or plantation of several 
hundred acres while his nearest neighbor, usually 
neighbors, may live in a hovel on the same farm 
surrounded by dirt and squalor of the worst sort. 
It is of the dweller in the hovel we wish to write. 
His life, his surroundings, his temptations we de- 
sire to reach and help. Not that the other fellow 
doesn't need help, but he is able to help himself. 
He knows the things he needs, but for generations 

34 



What They Do 35 

his people have been hoarders of dollars or hoarders 
of remnants of blue-blooded aristocracy. They will 
let go of neither. One is as great an evil as the 
other. There is absolutely no sympathy between 
this hoarder of aristocratic ancestry and the poor 
hovel dweller. But more of that later. 

Shall we call him a day laborer? I suppose so. 
That is about the way most of them live. They are 
witty, quick to see, but look with wonder upon 
education and scholarship. We have seen them 
open their eyes in astonishment when told that one 
can read two lines at a time or peruse an ordinary 
novel in a few hours. It is not always the day 
laborer who is so amazed. Sometimes it is the 
mountaineer who owns some hundreds of acres 
of rock, gravel, and scrubby trees and calls it a 
cattle range or sheep ranch. 

A generation ago these people tilled the soil in 
a small way, making their living selling a little com, 
a little wheat, now and then a steer, or perchance 
working by the month for the more successful 
farmer in the lowlands. It was easier then than 
now, because there was a government distillery 
every few miles and the mountain farmer could 
sell the com raised in his fertile valley or on his 
rich hillside for a good price within a short distance 
from his home. In those days com was about all 
he raised. That is the secret of the practical fail- 
ure of the government to break up the illicit distill- 
ing of liquor. Every few weeks now an illicit still 
is "raided" by revenue officers and in some cases 
hundreds of gallons of malt destroyed. The 
mountaineer dwelling in the coves and hills often- 
times declares that God gave these things to him, 



36 The Highlanders of the South 

therefore he has a right to use them so as to make 
a living the easiest way. Do you think these moun- 
tains need mission work? If it were not claiming 
his inalienable right to make whisky without pay- 
ing revenue he would be claiming some other so- 
called inaHenable right, for his chief right seems 
to be following the line of least resistance. 

Now that the government is making strenuous 
efforts to stop illicit distilling and "moonshining" 
this hardy mountaineer must look elsewhere for a 
living. Sometimes he hunts. Some dig ginseng 
and other herbs, marketing them at the nearest 
store. Others gather chestnuts in season, |>eel tan 
bark, or do anything else that presents itself. 
Suffice it to say that most of them do not work 
when they have rations ahead for a day or two. 

In recent years much of the timber is being 
sawed and marketed. This gives employment to 
all who care to work. With timber marketing has 
come increased price for unskilled labor. Formerly 
fifty or seventy-five cents was counted a good price 
for day labor. Now it is usually one dollar. This 
is true, however, only of the saw yards and logging 
camps. On the farms the price remains low. Some 
laborers — and they are not all negroes either — may 
be had for fifty cents or less, and they board them- 
selves. 

Given a chance they become fairly good car- 
penters or blacksmiths or masons, but usually do 
not accumulate wealth to any extent. Very few of 
them become contractors even in the least sense of 
that word. To become contractors they must 
think, and that is hard work, and yet you cannot 
beat one of them in a trade. 



What They Do 37 

Many of these people own their own homes — a 
small house and a lot but little larger. Some are 
fair renters; that is, they farm several acres of 
another man's land. They sometimes get out to the 
lowlands and there rent. Most of the people 
referred to in this chapter belong to the class al- 
most wholly illiterate. They do not accumulate 
property because they cannot calculate. Need I 
ask, Do they need mission work or Church Ex- 
tension aid? 



CHAPTER VI 
Their Service 

Before we enter upon a more technical discus- 
sion of the various conditions of this Southerner 
not aforementioned we deem it wise to speak of 
his service to his country. 

"If we take the term Southern mountaineers in 
its broader extent, all must agree that the service 
rendered the nation by the mountaineers of the 
South has been a notable one/'^ 

Men like Boone, Crockett, Sevier, Bean, Robert- 
son, the Shelbys, the Donelsons, the Doaks, the 
Carters, and the Bledsoes did an untold and an al- 
most unheralded good as those who blazed the 
way for the coming of civilization. They not only 
did good as frontiersmen, but later they helped the 
infant republic to hold its own against the on- 
slaughts of the British. True, these men were 
usually clad in buckskin and bearing their trusty 
rifles, but no one doubted either their courage or 
their aim. Fearless as tigers, they were as brave 
as lions. Often they took their lives in their hands 
and went in defense of the weak or to open un- 
trodden paths that the women and children might 
follow. After his little cabin was built and his 
small field cleared he had to be constantly on guard 
in the cultivation of his crops. If he but went to 
the spring half a hundred yards away for a 
bucket of water he must take with him his trusty 

1 President S. T. Wilson, The Southern Mountaineerg, p. 22, 
38 



Their Service 39 

rifle. He plowed, or rather dug, and hoed corn 
with this same rifle slung across his manly 
shoulders. Later when he must sell the fur prod- 
ucts of the winter, or procure ammunition and 
necessary clothing and articles of food, he must 
go by stealth to the nearest trading post, usually a 
fort, and there purchase needed supplies, always 
going and coming at the imminent risk of his life. 

You can safely say that individually and col- 
lectively the people of the South are patriotic, and 
that they believe in the true God. Anarchy and 
infidelity are practically unknown to the native 
Southerner. His ancestors carried the Book with 
them, and he has ever found it good enough for 
him. His ideas of God, Providence, and subjects 
of a like nature may be vague and regarded as 
superstitious by some, but he is true to them and 
mayhap his superstition helps him in being faith- 
ful. Likewise his fathers carried the law with 
them. It was held as sacred as the Book itself. In 
most instances the Book was law and is yet. The 
mountain country justice of the peace often is 
more just in meting out the law than is the city 
judge who may have all the appearances of learn- 
ing and wisdom without any of the penetration 
counting for so much in a judgment. We once 
heard a district attorney characterize a certain 
mountain country magistrate as being "able to see 
a point in law through a brick wall." But we are 
not to speak so much of these things as of actual 
warfare. 

Aside from the early defenses against the In- 
dians, we first find this Southern mountaineer in 
the Revolution, more particularly at the battle of 



40 The Highlanders of the South 

King's Mountain, 1 a cone-shaped hill in Lincoln 
County, North Carolina. Here the British had 
intrenched themselves under the command of Fer- 
guson, who declared "the Almighty himself could 
not drive him from it." Nine hundred chosen men 
armed with rifles surrounded the unbeliever and 
completely routed his men after killing him.2 
These nine hundred men were chosen from the 
riflemen of the mountaineers. Thomas Jefferson 
said of this battle, "That memorable victory was 
the annunciation of that turn of the tide of suc- 
cess which terminated the Revolutionary War with 
the seal of independence."^ 

These mountaineers were of great service in 
the Indian wars. Long life in the woods and for- 
ests taught them to be as crafty as the red man 
himself. He soon learned to imitate the Indian's 
decoy call for turkeys and other wild game. There 
is on record the death of more than one redskin 
taking quick passage to the "happy hunting 
ground" while following up the answer to his 
decoy sound. The Campbells, the Carters, the 
Shelbys, Sevier, and Robertson, with their trusty 
mountain riflemen, often outwitted the Indian in the 
border warfare of that day. In cunning the white 
man may not have been so great, but in craftiness 
and strategy he soon outgrew him. Never in any 
war, Indian or other, has this mountaineer failed 
to respond to the call of his country. Look at 
Jackson in the War of 1812, and do not forget 
Ensign Sam Houston in the same war. Think of 



1 Phelan, History of Tennessee, p. 29. 

'Historians' History of the World, vol. xxiii, p. 377. 

• Garrett and Goodpasture, History of Tennessee, p. 86. 



Their Service 4 1 

the Seminole War, and of the Black Hawk War, 
in which Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis 
figured not without conspicuousness. Then the 
civil war — ^who can tell their value in this great 
struggle to preserve the liberty won more than three 
quarters of a century before? Some will say that 
the mountaineers had no use for slaves, therefore 
they naturally took the opposition; others will say 
the mountain man was carried off his feet by the 
leadership of such men as Andrew Johnson and 
William Gannaway Brownlow. True, these causes 
had their bearing, but knowing the mountain man as 
I do it seems to me that he agreed with Abraham 
Lincoln in the thought that the one word Union 
should mean more than all else. His ancestors had 
seen Ireland fail and become oppressed because her 
brave leaders lacked unity; they had seen Scotland 
prevent oppression because of a united leadership.^ 
This ancestry had not forgotten to teach posterity 
what unity meant. Then, too, he has always placed 
his country first. Ignorant and illiterate though he 
be, on questions of general government this man 
thinks with remarkable clearness. 

In the civil war two congressional districts in 
Tennessee, the first and second, furnished more 
volunteers for the Union service than any district 
in the United States of a like population.^ Per- 
haps the most attractive thing about this enlisting 
is that it was almost entirely purely voluntary. In 
many instances the men traveled at night in order 
to evade the Confederate conscripting officers and 
enter the Union armv. Some men became famous 



1 D. H. Montgomery, English History, pp. 117, 118. 

2 See civil war records of that period. 



42 The Highlanders of the South 

piloting refugees through the Confederate lines to 
the Federal army and a place of Union safety. 
Captain Daniel Ellis, who died about two years 
ago, has a name far more than local. His book, 
published by Harp>ers, had a wide sale and copies 
of it are now much sought after by ex-Federal 
soldiers. Only a short while ago the writer pro- 
cured one for the commandant of a State Soldiers' 
Home in a Northern State. Other men became 
almost as famous as did Captain Ellis. By the way, 
Captain Ellis lived in the same county^ that gave 
to the nation General Samuel P. Carter, who was 
both a naval and an army officer — the only man 
to bear such distinction, I am reliably informed. 
General James Carter, of the regular army, comes 
from the same county. 

It might not be fair to say that these men saved 
the Union, but there is no question about their 
doing much toward it. In the far North or the 
far South it was not hard to be a Union man or a 
Confederate, respectively. But on middle ground, 
where lines were sharply drawn, it was a matter 
of much moment, requiring no little courage and 
judgment. That these men never hesitated to strike 
a blow for the the Union is sufficient evidence of 
their integrity. But let us say here that "Stone- 
wall" Jackson was a mountain man. 

The writer feels deeply his inability to tell as it 
should be told the story of these brave people. The 
way they fight for their rights and privileges can 
be told only by one who could fittingly tell of the 
deeds of a Bruce, a Wallace, or any Highland laird 
of the olden times. Such names as MacNeil, Mac- 

1 Carter Coiinty, Tennessee. 






Their Service 43 

Donald, MacReynolds, MacAmis, Dunbar, and also 
other "Macs" tell without further words what 
might be expected of such a people bearing such 
names and of such ancestry. 

Then there is the war of Cuba's freedom. At 
the first clarion call the men of the mountains went 
forth to give their lives, if need be, for the liberty 
of the dusky brother on the Pearl of the Antilles. 
A friend whose hobby is statistics has informed us 
that one of these mountain counties^ sent the larg- 
est per cent of volunteers to this war of any county 
in the United States. 

To quote President Wilson again: "This chapter 
would be incomplete were it not to call attention, 
before closing, to the service rendered their country 
by individuals of this mountain region. A mere 
mention of a fev/ representative names will em- 
phasize the great part that, in spite of all their 
seclusion, the Appalachians have had in the affairs 
of the nation. There are the pioneers Boone, 
Sevier, the Shelbys, Davy Crockett, and Sam 
Houston ; the Presidents Andrew Jackson, James 
K. Polk, and Andrew Johnson; the famous Con- 
federates Zebulon B. Vance, John H, Reagan, and 
"Stonewall" Jackson; the renowned Unionists Par- 
son Brownlow and Admiral Farragut; the inventor 
Cyrus H. McCormick; and the man of the nation, 
Abraham Lincoln. Surely the annals of the country 
would be the poorer were the deeds of the men of 
the Appalachians not found recorded in them." 

^ Greene County, Tenneawe. 



CHAPTER VII 
What They Do Not Know 

It may seem strange that a people so patriotic 
and so thoroughly Protestant should be so careless 
of their mental training. Their illiteracy is doubt- 
less more accidental than intentional. The writer 
would naturally like to make some plausible excuse 
for the ignorance and at the same time the inno- 
cence of this Southern mountaineer. He would 
feel more justifiable in making excuse if the ig- 
norance applied alone to the mountain man of the 
South. But since it is equally true of the dweller 
on the plains and on the large plantation it seems 
best to tell the plain unvarnished truth. We feel 
that in very few instances have the exact facts been 
known. It may not be too much to say that this is 
as important a field for mission work as some of the 
foreign fields. We will draw no conclusion, but 
tell the truth as it is given us to see the truth, and 
the reader may judge for himself. 

It is safe to say that the greatest trouble in all 
this land is that the educational facilities provided 
by the States are wholly inadequate for the de- 
mands of the people. First of all, they do not reach 
the people. In these United States it ought not to 
be necessary for any Church to educate the people, 
especially before they get through the eighth grade. 
Some think a compulsory school law in all the 
States would solve the problem. It probably would 
help, but the number of schoolhouses would have 

44 



What They Do Not Know 45 

to be doubled or the ones now in existence enlarged. 
It is the opinion of the writer that the States try 
to cover too much ground with the little money they 
now have. They have money enough, perhaps, to 
do fairly good work through five grades. Instead 
of that they try to go through eleven grades and in 
some instances twelve. The result is very imperfect 
work. We should ''lessen the denominator." 

Parts of the following Southern States are in the 
mountain region of the South: Georgia, Kentucky, 
North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vir- 
ginia, and West Virginia. 

The following tables compiled from the United 
States Census of 1900 show some things. The per 
cent of illiteracy is for native male citizens twenty- 
one years of age and over, foreign-born citizens and 
negroes of the same age. We take the seven 
States in which are found the Southern Appa- 
lachians or their ranges : 

Table I 

PER CENT OP ILLITERATES 

White Foreign white Negroes 

Georgia 11. 8 5.6 56.4 

Kentucky 14.3 8.6 49.5 

North Carolina 18.9 5.7 53.1 

South Carolina 12.3 5.2 54. 7 

Tennessee 14. i 7.7 47-6 

Virginia 12.2 10.5 52.5 

West Virginia 10.7 22,5 37-8 

Average totals 13.4 9.4 50.2 

Compare these figures with those of the United 
States as a whole and we have the following: 13.4 
and 4.9; 9.4 and 11.5 ; 50.2 and 47.4. Only the first 
startle. The more enterprising foreigners come 
South as traders, peddlers, and other business men. 



46 The Highlanders of the South 

Most of the negroes in the United States are in the 
South. It is the illiteracy of the white man that 
is so appalling. Feel as you please, the South is a 
white man's country and will so continue for untold 
generations. This is as it should be ; but this same 
white man should not boast of his up-to-dateness 
so long as this illiteracy is extant. Think what an 
illiterate vote of more than 13 per cent of the total 
might mean under certain conditions. 

Of the States named above, West Virginia and 
Kentucky have compulsory school laws. So have 
North Carolina and Tennessee in part. You may, 
however, count the compulsory school laws in these 
States as a farce, since they are not enforced "to 
hurt," as the little boy said about his father's 
religion. 

To show causes for the existence of facts as given 
in Table I we give other statistics. Where not 
otherwise stated the figures are for 1906-7 as given 
in the report of the Commissioner of Education for 
the United States: 

Table II 

Per cent Per cent 

of school of enrolled 

population actually 

'•enrolled attending 

United States 69.83 70.26 

Georgia 63.18 62.41* 

Kentucky 72.52' 61.78' 

North Carolina 70.52' 65.87' 

South Carolina 61.66 73-49 

Tennessee 77 -41^ 69.17' 

Virginia 58.61 59.55 

West Virginia 74.96 65.60 

Average totals 68.4 65.41 

Make your own comparison. 

1 1904-5. 3 1902-3. ' I90S-6. 



What They Do Not Know 

The following is not void of interest : 



47 



Table III 



Average 

number 

of days 

school kept 

United States 151. 2 



Average 

number 
oi days' 
attendance 
for all 
pupils 

74.3 



Georgia 118^ 

Kentucky 90 

North Carolina 95^ 

South CaroUna 104 • 5 

Tennessee 116 

Virginia 134 

West Virginia 127.5 



Average 
number 
of days' 
attendance 
by each 

gupil 
enrolled 

106. 2 



73.6 

55-6 
57.6^ 

73. S. 

80.2' 

80.5 

83.x 



Average totals 112. i 



48.5 



72 



Again make your own comparison. 
But what about Table IV? Examine it closely, 
please : 

Table IV 



United States. 



Amount 
raised per 
capita of 
scholastic 
population 

$14.28 



Amount 
expended 
per capita 

of total 
population 

$3-90 



Georgia $3 

Kentucky 3 

North Carolina 3 

South Carolina 3 

Tennessee 4 

Virginia 5 

West Virginia 10 



03^ 
60 

00 

77 
27 

34 



$0.98 
1 , 19' 
1 .09^ 
0.96 
1.492 
1.68 
3-07 



Amount 
expended 
per cajjita 

of avg. 
attendance 

$27.98 

$7-47 
8.59 
7.82' 

6.37 
9.23' 
15.28 
20.36 



Average totals $4.72 $1.49 $10.73 

These four tables show us some things and in 
part account for the frightful illiteracy of our 



1904-S. 



2 1902-3. 



* 1905-6, 



48 The Highlanders of the South 

Southern people. However, the main cause lies, 
like everything else, in our unwillingness to pay 
the price. In 1904 the United States as a whole 
expended for public schools on each $100 of true 
valuation on all real and personal property 25.5 
cents. These seven States expended on the same 
basis for the same year 21.6 cents. It is not neces- 
sary to call the reader's attention to the fact that 
we are far behind the average on other things as 
well as education. One more fact should be given. 
Not long since the superintendent of public instruc- 
tion in one of these States made the statement dur- 
ing his service as head of the school interests of 
his State for two terms that seventy-five per cent 
of the schools were failures, and that because of 
incompetent teachers ! In 1906-7 the United States 
expended $6.43 per capita of teachers in public 
normal schools for the training of teachers.^ The 
seven States in question expended $2.09 per capita 
of teachers for the training of their teachers — about 
one third the average for the whole country. What 
can be expected of a people who do not demand and 
provide skilled teachers? Can a stream rise higher 
than its source? A distinguished educator who 
spent some time in the South very frankly said 
that he had never been in a place where such a 
premium is placed on cheapness. Very few if any 
of these States have laws requiring applicants for 1, 
license to teach to know more than the branches |' 
they expect to teach. To illustrate : One may teach 
a primary (fifth grade) school by having completed 
the fifth grade work as prescribed by the school law 
in most of the Southern States, and passing a satis- 

> Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1907, vol. ii. 



What They Do Not Know 49 

factory examination, the examination in many in- 
stances being little more than a farce. To get to 
teach a public school in the mountain district often 
places one high up among his fellows and usually 
bestows upon him forever the title of ''Professor" ! 

Why, do you know that of the native white male 
voters in these seven States 13.4 per cent were illit- 
erate at the last census, while of the same class in 
the United States as a whole only 4.9 per cent were 
illiterate? We are nearly thrice the average for 
illiteracy. But this is not all. Mere book learning 
does not constitute an education. Neither does it 
make for all there is of culture and refinement and 
the things having an upward tendency. There is 
a dearth of general reading among our people. A 
county paper, a yellow journal or cheap novel, and 
an almanac issued by some irresponsible patent 
medicine concern is all you find in many of these 
mountain homes. Usually there is a Bible, but 
the writer recently procured several dozen Bibles 
for distribution by mountain preachers, and they 
were not enough. 

What sort of mental fiber can be built on the aver- 
age county newspaper? Many homes are without 
even it, and are perhaps none the worse therefor. 
There is a lack of good literature even in the home 
of the average well-to-do farmer. A stock book, 
a family doctor book, or an "Everybody's Lawyer" 
often takes precedence over every other sort of 
publication to enter such homes. The growing 
mind has absolutely nothing to feed upon. It is 
not an exaggeration to say that the farm live stock 
is often better cared for than the farm boy. The 
mules and colts and calves and lambs and pigs brings 



50 The Highlanders of the South 

money at an early age. The boy doesn't. This 
figure is by no means overdrawn. 

May we say one or two things more? It would 
be a good thing if every boy could be taught the 
evil of expectorating on the floors of living rooms, 
schoolrooms, and churches, and also sidewalks, 
street cars, and railway coaches. Very few of these 
mountain boys have an idea that spitting wherever 
one pleases is unhealthy, to say nothing of the lack 
of culture and refinement it implies. The lack of a 
bath is not all. It is hard to get the boys and girls 
to see the need of cleaning their shoes when enter- 
ing a house. Many of the men and women are the 
same way. Now, please do not think I am think- 
ing of a few and make these statements accord- 
ingly. I am thinking of hundreds and thousands — • 
come and I will show you. 

The few who attend church is another astonish- 
ing feature. According to a recent estimate made 
by the Presbyterian Church, the branch known 
locally as the Southern, there are three million white 
children in the Southern States out of Sunday 
school. Is this a field for mission work? 

There is more yet. In many of the so-called 
local centers of civilization there are those who 
have peculiar ideas about things. They think any 
sort of an old schoolroom is sufficient. We knew 
one woman, who in her imagination is a blue- 
blooded aristocrat, to say it was a useless and fool- 
ish expenditure of money to paper a schoolroom! 
Do you want to see her? This woman has a 
diploma from a Southern college. Do you not think 
we have problems aside from illiteracy? But they 
are to be treated later. 



What They Do Not Know 5 1 

We think schoolrooms and churches ought to be 
better furnished than the best dweUing houses in 
the community, and that the children should be 
taught to care for them. Where are the boys and 
girls to get an impetus to that which is higher if 
not at school and church? 

Just one more point and this chapter endethi — 
though there is more to it. Do you think the man 
who feels it is "stuck up" to shave oftener than 
once a week or month, or change his linen every 
two weeks, or bathe his feet at all, is in need of 
missionary work? Do you think the woman who 
cooks like "mam" did, who "dips" snufif all day long 
and gives it to her children, who goes barefoot most 
of the year, who perhaps changes dresses once a 
week — not oftener — and who combs her hair once 
a day — maybe — a fit subject for the missionary? 
Do you ? Do you want to see such people ? Come. 
They have good "mother wit," too. 

Again I say there is more to literacy than reading 
and writing. Such people as are mentioned in 
this chapter we have not by the hundreds but by 
the thousands. 

Yes, and don't you think a young mother, good- 
looking and well-to-do as such is counted in the 
hills, who would start to a near-by town for a visit, 
taking her two children along, and all their neces- 
sary belongings packed in two gaily painted peck 
baskets, needs to be taught that such things as suit 
cases and traveling bags have been invented? If 
you want tO' see such, come. 

These statistics tell a good story — some statistics 
relating to an isolated township of average condi- 
tion, in a border county, in the Southern Appa- 



52 The Highlanders of the South 

lachians. Eighty-three famiHes were considered 
just as found by the person making the test: 

I 

Average distance to county seat, 15^ miles. 
" post office, 4^ miles. 
" public school, 2^ miles. 
" doctor, 4 miles. 
" church, 2 1 miles. 
" store, 3^ miles. 

II 

Total area of farm land owned by the above families, 

2,279 acres. 
Average size of farm, 27 acres. 
Total amount cultivated, 639 acres. 
Average amount cultivated to farm, 7f acres. 

Ill 

Crops, gross, $13,018. 
Crops, net, $12,379. 
Seven made no crop. 
Average to farm, $161. 

IV 
Rations: Total amount, $4,438 for year 1908; average 

per family, $53.47- 
Meal: 64 raised, 19 bought. 

Flour: Total, $1,532; average per family for flour, $18.30. 
Pork: 45 raised, 38 bought. 
Coffee: Total, $718.80; average for coffee per family, 

$8.66. 
Sugar: Total, $578; average for sugar per family, $6.90. 
Molasses: 40 raised, 16 bought, 27 used none. 
Tobacco and snuff: Total expenditure, $902; 13 raised 

all or in part; average per family purchasing, $12 . 56. 
Clothes: Total expenditure, $2,949; average per family, 

$35-42. 

V 
Taxes: Total amount, $204.60; average per family, 

$2.46. 
Men working road, 56. 
Type of Houses: 
Frame, 24; 
Log, 44; ^ , ^ 
Box, 15. Total, 83. 



i 



What They Do Not Know 53 

Average size of family, s|. 

Number sleeping in room, 4^, 

Number of beds in room, i to 4. 

Average number of windows per house, i J. 

Ventilation: Minus. 

Sanitation: Minus. 

Out closets, 6. 

Cooking facilities: 68 families have stoves; 15 cook on 

fire places. 
Meals: 69 families have meals regularly; 14 families have 

no regard for regularity. 
Illegitimacy: i6f% of parents illegitimate; 8% of chil- 
dren illegitimate. 
Physical conditions: 

Prevalent diseases. 

Tuberculosfs. 

Venereal disease. 

Hookworm disease. 
Conditions affecting health: 

Lack of ventilation and sanitation. 

Monotony of diet. 

Insufficient clothing. 

Consanguinity. 

These figures and estimates are in no sense over- 
drawn, but are made by one very careful. They 
can be duplicated in many instances. They almost 
prove that the mountain man is not so very health- 
ful, after all. 



CHAPTER VIII 
The Problem 

Far be it from us to minimize any racial prob- 
lems high-bred Southerners claim to be in exist- 
ence, but to our way of thinking the South, chival- 
rous, patriotic, impulsive, and valorous as she has 
ever been and is yet, has but one problem. Shall 
we name it? If so, what shall we call it? We 
want to make every one of our some ten millions 
of people in the South feel good, but we must name 
that one problem ignorance, pure and simple. We 
write this from the standpoint of one who was bom 
and raised in one of the seceding States and who 
has no thought other than that he shall spend his 
days here. But that one word tells the truth and 
the whole truth. The preceding chapter of facts 
proves it. Now, may we give a few reasons why 
this is true, absolutely true? 

First of all, the South is yet much more of an 
isolated place and section than we are wont to 
think. We are progressive in a sense and our 
leaders are broad and cosmopolitan thinkers, but 
among many of the well-to-do you find that Lee 
surrendered, but they never have. Why, I can show 
you men on plantations of hundreds of acres who 
yet believe in the divine right of human slavery, and 
who expect if all the powers of the Federal govern- 
ment get into the hands of a certain political party 
that they wall get pay for slaves freed by the civil 
war! Is that ignorance? This same man thinks 

54 



The Problem 55 

he ought to have his slaves back. He has been to 
college, too, and has been born since Appomattox. 
These men dwell in the mountains of the South and 
are just as pronounced as those who dwell farther 
South where ''cotton is king and sugar cane is 
queen." These are the people who make the prob- 
lem difficult of solution. They are "hidebound," 
if I may use the word. They travel but little, and 
then only in places where they know they will find 
things suited to their tastes. Everything must be 
Southern as taught to them for generations. The 
poor white man or the man who has no blue-blooded 
ancestry of which to boast can have no place with 
them. They often live in lordly isolation with this 
same poor white man to serve and wait and slave 
and labor. As our free public schools advance it 
is no uncommon thing to see the children of the 
one and the other side by side in school keeping 
pace and graduating together. But always there is 
the gap or abyss between. 

We write as an impartial observer, though our 
fathers were slave owners. 

It may seem strange, but certainly in no part of 
the world are there people of a common ancestry 
who are at such extremes of poverty and wealth, of 
ignorance and learning, of uncouthness and cul- 
ture, as you find in the Southern States. The 
tragedy of the whole thing is that the man of 
wealth, learning, and culture has so little sympathy 
with his brother of poverty, ignorance, and un- 
couthness. His is an education of aristocracy and 
not of democracy. It is perhaps not too much to 
say that in many instances he would sooner help 
the negro than a poor white man. Many are 



56 The Highlanders of the South 

familiar with the saying in certain sections, *l*d 
rather be a negro than a poor white man." 

This same well-to-do white man in the South 
often gets to be an editor, a member of the legis- 
lature, a congressman, or a United States senator. 
He frequently continues to view the world through 
the same inconsistent smoked glasses, as the fol- 
lowing incident will show. The Speaker referred 
to was Hon. Thomas B. Reed, and the incident took 
place in Washington in the first months of 1898, 
immediately preceding the Spanish- American war: 

"I remember a scene in the Speaker's office just 
before the outbreak of war, which illustrates not 
only his attitude in this matter, but the quickness 
of his wit. I had gone to his office at his request 
in relation to certain matters connected witli the 
business of the Coast Survey. As we sat talking 
a Southern member of Congress burst into the 
room, his face aflame with excitement, a newspaper 
in his hand. Planting the paper on the table before 
the Speaker, he demanded in an excited voice 
whether a civilized nation would permit such 
things as were there described within ninety miles 
of its borders. Slowly adjusting his glasses, the 
Speaker cast his eye over the paper. At the top, in 
large headlines, was a story of the sufferings of the 
reconcentrados. But about halfway down the page, 
in smaller lines, was an account of an assault on a 
negro postmaster in one of the Southern States. 
Instead of reading the top lines, the Speaker read in 
his drawling voice the lower set of headlines : 'The 
Postmaster at Blank Shot — His Wife Ill-treated — 
His House Burned.' 'Why, my friend,' said he, 
in the same drawling tone, 'that can't be down 



The Problem 57 

South; that must be over in Cuba. If we had a 
civilization like that we wouldn't want to spread it 
over Cuba anyhow, would we?' By that time the 
would-be saviour of Cuba was well on his way out 
of the room."^ 

The one redeeming feature about this middle 
class and "poor whites," for whose help this little 
book is sent out, is that they may be made over in 
one generation. Our schools and colleges are full 
of touching incidents. The problem is not what 
they can do, but how to get them to do it. These 
classes have furnished men in every walk of life 
from alderman to president; from circuit preacher 
to the episcopacy ; from local magistrate to supreme 
court judge ; and from a country doctor to an 
eminent physician and surgeon. Nor should we 
leave out the country school-teacher who later be- 
came college professor and university president. 

Since Dr. Wilson tells us to quote as we like 
from The Southern Mountaineers, we take the fol- 
lowing as illustrative of the classes involved in the 
problem : 

"A century and a half have passed away, and the 
men of the mountains of to-day are the descendants 
of some of those sterling pioneers. They have held 
lonely state for several generations in their Appa- 
lachian homes; but they are still there to give ac- 
count of themselves, and to face the providential 
future. There have developed among these dwellers 
in the mountains three distinct classes that must be 
recognized by every judicious student of their 
history. 

» Henry S. Pritchett in the North American Review for March, 
1909, "Some Recollections of McKinley." 



58 The Highlanders of the South 

"(i) There are the large numbers of them that 
have occupied the fertile and extensive valleys of 
the Shenandoah and East Tennessee, and other 
rich valleys and plateaus, and have established 
centers of trade and commerce that have developed 
such prosperous cities and towns as Chattanooga, 
Knoxville, Johnson City, Bristol, Asheville, Salem, 
Roanoke, Lexington, Staunton, and Harrisonburg. 
These mountaineers, or rather valley-dwellers, have 
to deal only with such questions as affect other 
intelligent sections of our land. They send out 
missionaries to the ends of the earth, and have as 
rich and pure a life as have any urban or country 
people of our Southland. They outnumber the 
other two classes combined. -To apply to them any 
hasty generalizations suggested by a study of the 
third class is simply unpardonable. 

"(2) Away from these centers of wealth or 
competence, and culture, and refinement, there are 
two other classes more affected by their mountain 
environment than are these others that merely live 
in sight of the mountains or in the highland com- 
munities that are lowland' in their development. 
There are, first, the true, worthy mountaineers that 
deserve far more of praise than of dispraise. While 
their isolated and hard life, remote from the centers 
of culture, has contracted their wants and the supply 
of those wants, and has forced them to do without 
a multitude of the 'necessities' and conveniences and 
luxuries that seem indispensable to many other 
people of the twentieth century, they have kept that 
which is really worth while, namely, their virility 
and force of character. 

"The fact is that Nature, in accordance with her 



The Problem 59 

marvelous method of compensations, has endowed 
these hardy mountaineers with some sterner qual- 
ities in lieu of the more Chesterfieldian ones of 
more favored society; quahties that render them in 
some respects stronger and more resourceful than 
their more pampered kinsmen of the valley or the 
plain. They have escaped many of the vices and 
folHes that are sapping the life of modern society. 
They have nerves, in this day of neurasthenia and 
neuremia. They know something of all the neces- 
sary arts, in these days when centralized labor gives 
each workman only a part of one art to which to 
apply himself. 

*'The mountaineer of this class eats what he 
raises, and applies to the store for only coffee and 
sugar to supplement what his acres produce. He 
does his own horseshoeing, carpentering, shoemak- 
ing, and sometimes he weaves homespun. He is 
the most hospitable host on 'earth and heartily en- 
joys his guest, providing that guest has the courtesy 
to show his appreciation of what is offered him. 
His honesty coexists with native shrewdness that 
is sometimes a revelation to the unscrupulous 
visitor that would take advantage of him in a trade. 
He is usually amply able to take care of himself. 
Indeed, no American has a livelier native intelli- 
gence. 

''To speak of this class of mountaineers as merit- 
ing patronizing disdain is to show oneself to be a 
most superficial observer. Many of these men of 
the mountains do, perhaps, need much that can be 
given from without the Appalachian, but they have 
a reserve strength that, when aroused, will speedily 
prove them the peers of any people. 



6o The Highlanders of the South 



^ 



"(3) There is a third and much smaller class of 
mountaineers of which not so much good can be 
said. They correspond to, while entirely different 
from, that peculiar and pitiable lowland class of 
humanity that was one of the indirect products of 
the institution of slavery — 'the poor whites/ or 
'mudsills,' as they used to be called. They are the 
comparatively few, who are very incorrectly sup- 
posed by many readers of magazine articles to be 
typical of the entire body of Southern mountaineers. 
By this mistaken supposition a mighty injustice is 
done to a very large majority of the dwellers in the 
Appalachians. As fairly judge England by 'Dark- 
est England' ; or London by Whitechapel ; or New 
York by the slums ; or any community by the sub- 
merged tenth. 

"This third class consists of the drift, the flotsam 
and jetsam that are cast up here and there among 
the mountains. They are the shiftless, ambitionless 
degenerates, such as are found wherever men are 
found. Usually they own little or no land and eke 
out a precarious existence, as onty a beneficent 
Providence that cares for the birds and other deni- 
zens of the forest could explain. 

"The proportion of Scotch-Irish names may 
not be so great among these people, but many 
such names are found among them. This class 
would be a very hopeless one were it not for a 
quality that will be referred to again — namely, the 
fact that it can be made over in one generation. 

"It need hardly be said that, as in all classifica- 
tions of men on the basis of character and condi- 
tion, there are many gradations among these three 
classes; and, indeed, that the classes themselves 



The Problem 6 1 

merge into one another so that at times it is impos- 
sible to say just where one ends and another begins. 
But why be too nice in determining metes and 
bounds? Is there not even in the great metropolis 
a slum problem, and is there not a Fifth Avenue 
problem — both with indeterminate boundaries? 
The worthiest question anyone can ask him- 
self is: How can I best help any brother man of 
mine, of any rank and race, submerged or non- 
submerged, to realize his high calling in Christ 
Jesus ?"^ 

While we may not exactly agree with what Class 
One is doing according to President Wilson, we 
do know that Class Two and Class Three are the 
people we want to reach. We feel safe in saying 
also that it may not be easily done through Class 
One, though that is the way it should be done. 
Class One have sufficient advantages, comparatively 
speaking. They need waking up. 

Class Two is perhaps the strongest of the classes 
and is possessed of the greatest possibilities. But 
there will be more development in Class Three than 
in any, once you get him aroused. He is the man 
who is made over in one generation. It is he who 
calls for the best there is in us. 

With the first class able to take care of itself 
and the second class willing to help it is up to us to 
see to it that this third class, who doesn't care a 
straw which way the wind blows, is made to care. 
How shall we reach him? But do not forget that 
in the humble opinion of the writer each of these 
classes is a fit subject for more or less missionary 
work — the first because he could do more if he 

> President S. T. Wilson, The Southern Mountaineers, pp. 15-20. 



62 The Highlanders of the South 

were not "hidebound"; the second because he is 
willing but does not know how; and the third be- 
cause he is almost helpless. 

One of the first class said to a gentleman but 
recently in discussing the work of the Board of 
Education of our Church, and also the gifts of 
Northern men to Southern educational and church 
work, "Darn 'em, they took our property; let 'em 
give us money." The words were prompted by 
the remark that Southerners have no right to expect 
Northern men to educate their children. This man 
was born since the civil war, but he thinks he should 
have pay for the slaves he failed to inherit. Does 
he need missionary work? Don't you dare tell him 
that, for he is sure he is "up-to-now." But I am 
not writing this for him. 

It is this prejudice of the well-to-do Southerner 
against the lower class and less fortunate white 
man and negro that really gives us any problem at 
all. The mountain man is arbitrary in his feelings 
as well as in other things, but his more fortunate 
neighbor could help him if he would. But he will 
not for at least another generation. One of these 
"unterrified" recently remarked that the Masons 
turned Mr. Taft down, since they made him a 
Mason "at sight" ! He believed it because a neigh- 
bor had so informed him. 

I admit that some things in this chapter may 
seem a little "farfetched," but there is not a single 
one of them that cannot be substantiated and even 
duplicated almost any day. It is our business to 
tell the truth. Do you think we have a problem in 
these mountains? Do you think the words "race 
problem" express the situation clearly for the 



The Problem 63 

South? Again we say the South has but one 
problem — ignorance! Just come and see. 

But before we close this chapter let us mention 
one other thing tending to make the problem the 
more difficult. Things in local communities are so 
depressing. In church affairs in the country dis- 
tricts and even in the towns the preacher must be 
the leading factor. He must have the life and en- 
ergy and push, or things stand still. The same is 
true of the educator. Rarely does he find a man 
who will take the initiative. Every fellow seems to 
be following the line of least resistance — the same 
old story of not caring which way the wind blows 
or if it blows at all. But this is just another phase 
of the problem, though a very true one and no less 
difficult than the others. It is particularly true of 
the man who shepherds a flock or leads a neighbor- 
hood in things educational. He has to make his 
own atmosphere of energy and endeavor if he 
breathes any. 

Of course, the one and only method of redemp- 
tion is religion and education. It is difficult to say 
which should come first. It seems that it takes the 
education to make the religion "stick." The work 
of the, school should be spiritual, of course, but 
among us no greater work can be done than train- 
ing the mind to stay at a thing as well as to get 
at it. 

It might be well enough to say that another 
phase of the problem is the large families found in 
these mountain homes. Not infrequently six or 
eight or ten or even twelve persons cook, eat, and 
sleep in one room, and it often not twenty feet 
square! But there is plenty of ventilation. They 



64 The Highlanders of the South 

bring children into the world, but what about 
preparing them for the responsibilities of life? 
One native says that up in the Cumberland Moun- 
tains women raise large families of children with- 
out the incumbency of a husband ! If you doubt it 
take a little trip up there or elsewhere in the 
Southern Appalachians. 

If we were writing this for Secretary Mason we 
would include the mixed-blooded people as a part 
of the problem and blame them to the well-to-do 
Southerner. 



CHAPTER IX 
Other Denominations 

Apropos of this little book for our own people 
specially but for all generally, it is but meet that 
a word be said about other denominations and what 
they are doing for the strengthening of the reli- 
gious and educational fiber in a region not poor nor 
poverty-stricken save in imagination. And do you 
know any poverty direr or more pitiable than the 
imaginary? I do not mean that we are rich, but 
that we could do so much more than we do if we 
could only see it that way — could but get the vision. 

A boy was digging potatoes on a red hillside when 
a passing stranger hailed him as to what he was 
doing and what the yield per acre would be. 

*'Six or eight bushels," replied the boy. 

"My, my, but you must have a difficult time mak- 
ing a living in such a country as this," commented 
the stranger. 

Other remarks of a similar nature, all breathing 
sympathy, followed until the boy had as much as 
he could endure, and suddenly cried out: 

"I ain't as pore as yer think I am, stranger. I 
don't own this land; I'm jist a wurkin it!" 

Take the reverse of this story, investigate and 
you will see that none of us in the South are as 
poor as we think we are. We may be a bit slow, 
but there is within us much latent power making us 
rich beyond our fondest dreams once we realize 
where our strength lies. 

65 



66 The Highlanders of the South 

One would perhaps expect the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, South, to have the greatest aggre- 
gate of wealth. And such is true. Since all 
Churches place more stress upon the ministry and 
preaching the Word than upon any other phase of 
religion, we think it best to emphasize the educa- 
tional phase here. Hence our figures relate only 
to schools and their work. Only white schools are 
considered, the colored schools being left to Secre- 
tary Mason and like worthy men in other Churches. 

We have tried to be very careful in compiling 
our figures, but may have made some errors. Our 
estimates are made for the States of Georgia, Ken- 
tucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, 
Virginia, and West Virginia, and are taken from 
the Southern Methodist Handbook for 1909. Ac- 
cording to this authority, this great Church has 
within the limits of these States one university, 
thirty colleges, and thirty-five academies and un- 
classified schools, with a total wealth of $5,866,- 
327; an endowment fund for those schools of 
$2,748,602, and an enrollment of 13,170 students. 
True, this Church had its origin in the South in 
times when blood was thicker than water, and when 
men made church lines no less tense than those of 
party, war, or principle. This is pretty fair prop- 
erty as an educational plant. Much business can be 
done therewith. 

We have the following for the Baptist Church in 
these seven States taken from the American Baptist 
Year Book for 1909: Five universities, sixteen 
colleges, and thirty-five academies and smaller 
schools. These show a total wealth of $2,868,485, 
with $1,460,745 endowment and an enrollment of 



Other Denominations 67 

5,371 students. The Baptist Church has been in 
these States a long while and has had no internecine 
war to cut its power in twain as had some of the 
other Churches. This is not a bad showing for the 
Baptists. 

According to President Wilson in The Southern 
Mountaineers, we gather some interesting facts 
about the Presbyterian Church. The figures are 
for the year 1905. Amount of endowment is not 
available, but it is good. Since this estimate was 
made there has been great increase in finances, 
especially at Maryville, Tennessee, and also in 
attendance within this splendid working Church. 

But let us see for 1905. The Presbyterians then 
had one university, five colleges, and fifty-four 
academies and smaller schools, with a property 
valuation of $1,934,620 and an enrollment of 8,478 
students. Bear in mind that this Church pays the 
largest amount per capita of membership for all 
purposes of any Church in this country. Note also 
that her property valuation is barely one-third that 
of the Southern Methodists, but that she has almost 
two thirds their enrollment. And do not forget that 
this Church has fifty-four academies and smaller 
schools, or exactly one half more than any other 
Church operating in the South. To the writer's way 
of seeing things, this Church is doing preeminently 
the constructive and creative work in the South 
to-day, and it is by means of its smaller schools, 
whereby education is carried right up to the door 
of the fellow who will get it in no other way. It 
may be that we place too high an estimate on the 
work of the smaller schools as feeders to the col- 
leges and larger schools, but look at results obtained 



68 The Highlanders of the South 



1 



and certainly there is an admissible reason for the 
judgment. 

These are the leading Churches in the South out- 
side our own, which is to be treated in a separate 
chapter. 

So far as we are able to learn, the United Breth- 
ren Church has but one school in the South, and 
that a very small one, the property being worth 
about $18,000, the enrollment about 125, and the 
grade hardly more than academic. 

The Christian Church has a few small schools, 
as do the Friends and a few of the smaller denomi- 
nations. As has been said, the Catholics are estab- 
lishing mission schools here and there where they 
expect to get a strong hold. 

Will you study this chapter ? 



CHAPTER X 
The Methodist Episcopal Church 

Since the reorganization of our Church in the 
South nearly half a century ago we have had some- 
what of a strenuous life accompanied by a 
rather marvelous growth. Our ministers have been 
almost constantly on the firing-lines, so to speak. 
In many instances church lines have been tense, and 
even we have been told that we have no business in 
the South. Other things have tended to discour- 
age the forwardness of our movements. Despite 
these and many other things, we have gone steadily 
forward until we are recognized now as one of the 
three or four leading denominations in the Southern 
States. Many things have converged to make us 
this. As one man put it in talking to Bishop Quayle 
recently, many like to belong to a whole and not to 
a detached part. They like our Church because it 
represents the original organization of Methodists. 
Many others also see great promise for the future 
in our Church, believing that as we make advances 
we will bring influential help tending to make not 
only for religious enterprise but for educational 
advancement and gain as well. They look upon it 
as a cosmopolitan Church from which reasonably 
great and broad results for the general good may 
be expected. 

Led by godly men, our people have been always 
spiritualizing and inspiring to others. Nor have 
they feared to sacrifice personal conveniences and 

69 



JO The Highlanders of the South 

desires for the common good. Possessed of "a 
strange warming of the heart," they have pushed 
forward into unthought-of places, carrying with 
them the sign and the spirit by which they always 
conquer. Too much cannot be said in praise of the 
people called Methodists. Nor is it reasonable to 
suppose that too much may be hoped for from them 
in the future, considered in a reasonable way. 

We have some excellent property and some very 
fine church homes, but in this as well as in other 
things there are extremes of poverty and wealth, 
as illustrations would show. 

When it comes to schools our Church compares 
favorably with others respecting work done, but 
not with respect to wealth. According to our Year 
Book for 1909, we have one university in these 
Southern States (these figures are concerning 
schools for the whites), one college, and eleven 
academies and smaller schools. These have an 
aggregate wealth of $761,000, with an endowment 
fund of $321,500 and an enrollment of 2,940. 
Counting property valuation and equipment, you 
will see that our number of students compares 
very favorably with any of the other schools. 

With a rapidly developing and vastly resourceful 
country, it is fair to say that there is little danger 
of being too optimistic about the future of our 
Church in the South. It is rapidly taking hold of 
the people and making for itself a recognition 
among Churches and schools that is second to none. 

Let not this be taken in adverse criticism, but it 
appears to the writer that if we could put more 
money into schools and churches farther up in the 
mountains, remote from centers of learning and 



The Methodist Episcopal Church 7 1 

religious culture, results would be greater and 
more far-reaching. But that is a matter wholly 
for our farseeing leaders to settle. Certain it is 
that some of our best men have been started and 
given the inspiration to go ahead in some one of 
our little mountain schools. Our central university 
at Chattanooga readily testifies to the truthfulness 
of this statement, and it can do so among its best 
students to-day. Lest it may be said we are unduly 
prejudiced in favor of Methodist folk, we will close 
this chapter without more words of praise and 
prophecy for the magnificent Church which has 
never forgotten the words of its great founder, who 
wrought far better than he knew: "I look upon all 
the world as my parish." 

However, just to show our religious resources, 
these figures, perhaps, are not out of place. Taking 
the following Conferences, Saint Johns River, 
Saint Louis, Alabama, Austin, Blue Ridge, Central 
Tennessee, Georgia, Gulf, Holston, Kentucky, Mis- 
souri, and West Virginia, we have, according to our 
Year Book, 1,133 preachers, 223,206 members, 
221,541 Sunday school scholars, 2,943 churches 
worth $6,200,560, and 728 parsonages worth 
$1,425,118. This is a good plant with which to do 
business for the Lord, but we as Methodists can 
and will make it much more effective in the near 
years to come. 



CHAPTER XI 
The Progress of the South 

With the many things set down as being against 
the South, there remains the indisputable fact that 
we are making rapid advancement, and that this 
progress is not confined to any particular locality, 
but seems to be widespread. Factories and mills 
have sprung up as if by magic. Where a short 
time ago you found a little ''corn cracker," mashing 
a bushel or so of corn a day, you now see fine roller 
mills, turning out daily several barrels of flour nicely 
packed in bags supplying local trade and doing 
some merchant milling. 

In many instances where stood the blacksmith 
shop or saw mill one sees an iron forge or a wood- 
working establishment, each giving employment to 
many men. And no better laborer is found than 
the Southern mountaineer. He has good nerve, 
plenty of grit, and his intelligence is such that he 
soon becomes a skilled laborer. Farther South the 
cotton mills have given great opportunities for the 
development of men of ability in the management 
of large affairs in milHng interests. The people 
have not been slow to take advantage of all such 
opportunities. 

Manufacturing interests and milling plants of 
all kinds have proven almost veritable gold mines 
to the South, but that which would appear of 
greater and more permanent value is the awakened 
and increasing vigorousness with which scientific 

72 



The Progress of the South 73 

farming is pursued. We are many years behind 
yet on this, but recent advances seem prophetic of 
much greater things. As it has been for all historic 
time, so it is now and will ever be, that the per- 
manency of any people depends upon the intelli- 
gence, skill, and success with which they till the 
soil, care for its fertility, and minimize its waste. 
And the strongest thing about farming here is that 
the dignity of labor is becoming more and more to 
be recognized as worth while, and that he who 
labors honestly for the welfare of his own house- 
hold as well as that of others is respected, honored, 
and commended. 

Quoting from World's Work, June, 1907, from 
which all the quotations in this chapter are taken, 
we have : 

"Fifty years ago, moreover, the farmers of the 
Upland South wasted the lands — tilled a field reck- 
lessly for a few years, then cleared a 'new ground' 
and abandoned the old to broomsage and gullies; 
but now this land-debauchery has ended. Crop 
rotation and the legumes preserve the earth's fer- 
tility. Every year a crop of land-enriching cow- 
peas may be sandwiched in between the staple crops 
or cultivated in connection with them. Farmers no 
longer scratch over five hundred acres to make 
what intensive culture would produce on one 
hundred. 'Don't go West to find a new plantation,' 
says a new eastern-Carolina proverb ; 'plow deeper 
and you will find a new one just below the old one 
you have been scratching on.' 

"Two stories from real life will illustrate as 
well as anything else the whole story of the 
State's [North Carolina] farming progress. 



74 The Highlanders of the South 

" 'You see I could not afford to be governor !' 
The man who said this is not a congressman nor a 
capitalist nor a manufacturer, but a humble, slave- 
born negro farmer — Calvin Brock, of Wayne 
County. He was talking to the governor of North 
Carolina, whose salary is only $4,000 annually and 
whose clear profit is minus — while Calvin Brock 
had made the year before a clear profit of $2,723.61 
on fifteen acres of strawberries alone, besides culti- 
vating fifty acres of land in other crops. The black 
Cincinnatus certainly could not afford to leave his 
plow for the salary of the chief executive — although 
he has never seen the inside of a schoolhouse and 
only learned to read and write by copying and 
conning a scrawled alphabet which a country car- 
penter penciled for him on a new pine shingle ! 

"Another experience is that of a white farmer in 
an adjoining county who paid five hundred dollars 
for a farm of fifty-three acres in 1899 — not quite 
$10 an acre. Its former owner had acted on the 
theory that he didn't own anything except three 
inches of surface soil, and with such cultivation it 
took four acres of the land to make a bale of cotton. 
But that policy by no means commended itself to 
the new owner. Thoroughly inoculated with the 
idea of crop rotation and deep plowing, he aston- 
ished the soil itself by the energy of his reforms. 
Hitching an eleven-hundred pound mule to an ordi- 
nary plow, he found that it would not penetrate the 
brickyard that lay beneath the few inches of culti- 
vated upper crust. Then he hitched up two horses 
and they broke ofif his plow, whereupon he swore 
and sent to Chattanooga for a four-horse disk plow. 
By this time the 'moss-backed* farmers who had 



The Progress of the South 75 

never averaged more than a quarter-bale per acre 
had sworn that he would ruin his land forever with 
his newfangled 'book-farming' ideas; but to no 
effect. 'I surely can't make money by your plans,' 
he retorted, 'and it can't be any worse to try the 
book-farming ideas, as you call them. And as for 
ruining the land, it's my own, I reckon, and I will 
plow clean down half way to China if I want to.' 
Of course, the man ought to have deepened his 
seed-bed gradually, instead of bringing so much 
subsoil to the surface at once, but liberal disk har- 
rowing largely overcamic his errors here, and the 
heavy cowpea crop and the barnyard manure did 
the rest. The next year indicated the land's upward 
trend; and by proper rotation and cultivation he 
brought it up until, in 1905, part of it made two 
bales of cotton per acre; and this year, following 
corn last year, he hopes for a two-bale average on 
the entire field. To-day he wouldn't sell his $943 
land of 1899 for $100 an acre; and why should he, 
since even at that figure the buyer could pay for it 
with the first year's cotton crop? His example is 
but one of thousands that might be cited, and that 
have proved as contagious as measles." 

Then, the people are changing their attitude on 
many questions. Half a century ago the planta- 
tion owners planned one of the professions for their 
boys, usually the law. Not so now. Quoting again, 
we read: *T asked a young man at one of the 
Southern schools of technology why he chose this 
training rather than training for one of the older 
professions. 'My grandfather,' said he, 'was a 
mighty man in theology in his day. He knocked 
out his opponents and he battered the devil. My 



76 The Highlanders of the South 

father was a lawyer and a soldier. He fought the 
United States by argument and in war. I notice 
that the devil and the United States are both doing 
business yet. I made up my mind, therefore, that 
I would change the family job and do what I can 
to build mills and roads in Georgia.' " 

Another instance : *'Two men whose parents were 
'poor white trash' have, without formal education, 
in ten or a dozen years made property worth $200,- 
000 by growing cotton ; and they manage their busi- 
ness as systematically as any business in New York 
is managed." 

"1 know a young man who declined a comfort- 
able salary and a post of honor in a Northern uni- 
versity because he wished to teach country youth at 
his own Southern college on an insecure guarantee 
(year by year) of only $500. There are hundreds 
such." 

We read further relative to going South: *'Go 
South, young man; but do not go unless you are 
willing and able to do a man's work. If you 
wish to practice the law or to preach, you will 
not be so likely to succeed. These professions 
are not particularly in need of recruits in the 
South. If you are a teacher, and especially if 
you think more of doing good work and of see- 
ing appreciative results of your work than of 
earning a large income, you will find a field of 
usefulness as wide as the most ardent ambition 
could ask. If you are an engineer or any such 
craftsman — a man who can build things — you will 
find profitable work and plenty of it. The land 
cries out for builders, developers, workers, prac- 
tical men; and great rewards await them. It has 



The Progress of the South 77 

(and to spare) philosophers and pohticians and 
professional men of all the old sorts." 

The magazine from which we quote so liberally 
in this chapter pays the highest tribute to the South 
by the following, our final quotation : 

*'The South has worked out three fundamental 
tasks which all the world may profit by : 

" ( I ) How to teach the farmer who is now on the 
land to double his crop ; 

"(2) How to teach boys and girls practical trades 
while they are 'getting their education' ; 

"(3) How to govern cities without politics and 
without graft." 

Do you know of any section of this great nation 
of which this may be said with a greater degree of 
truthfulness ? We do like honesty and fairness and 
justice, and it does not hurt us to be told that we 
possess these essentials, particularly when the 
words come from fair-minded Northerners. 

Another good sign is that people of the South 
are coming to have a more sympathetic view of edu- 
cation in a general way. They no longer think it 
should be confined to the wealthy and the large 
plantation owner. Educational ideas are every- 
where widespread. One of the States, Tennessee, 
appropriated more money for educational purposes 
at the 1909 session of its General Assembly than it 
had appropriated in the eight previous years. This 
State is also providing for three normal schools for 
the training of its white teachers, one to be located 
in each geographical division of the State. One 
normal school is also provided which shall be for 
the training of negro teachers exclusively. Nearly 
all the other States in the South are taking the same 



jS The Highlanders of the South 

rapid strides in education. Of course, it will be 
years before our standards of efficiency are up to ' 
the other States of the nation, but be it remembered 
we are going in that direction. 

These educational advantages, together with the 
iron, coal, cotton, rice, manufacturing, and small 
fruit industries, cannot do other than attract the' 
eyes of the whole country toward the South. 
More than a generation ago the slogan given out 
by Horace Greeley was, "Go West, young man, and 
grow up with the country." Is it too much to 
expect that even in this generation we may hear the 
words, "Go South, young man, and grow rich with 
the country"? 




A \\EA\LR AND LUVEK UF LAX 



1 



CHAPTER XII 
Unto the Last 

In coming to the final chapter it may not be out 
of place to call attention to the fact that many of 
these mountain people are as clannish to-day as 
were their ancestors among the Scottish hills cen- 
turies ago. Only such clannishness could make pos- 
sible the mountain feuds that existed for years in 
some parts of the South. And they break out once 
in a great while yet, but in a much subdued form. 

The best illustration of clannishness outside the 
feuds is in the family of the old lady with the cats 
in her arms. She lives alone some distance from 
any member of her immediate family, yet they come 
to see her, supply wood and the necessaries of life, 
and do all that is possible for her comfort. They 
are good citizens and splendid neighbors. 

To broaden out a little, we may say that the 
South as a whole seems to be in an era of develop- 
ment. Our people are becoming more conservative 
and are helping more than ever to give an opening 
for the use of Northern capital, energy, and brains. 
Not that we do not have all these — 'twouldn't be 
Southern to admit it if we didn't have — but that 
we need more. 

Men are becoming less prejudiced toward the 
education of the masses and the races, and more re- 
ceptive to all the Churches. This within itself is 
good indication of sure and permanent progress. 

As might be expected, the men born since the 
79 



8o The Highlanders of the South 

civil war are more conservative than their fathers, 
and it is perhaps not too much to hope that the 
second generation since that fearful struggle will 
be yet far more helpful in the development of their 
great and resourceful country. 

Mr. Taft put it pretty well, as the following 
will show: 

"Party lines are breaking up, have indeed broken 
up to an extent not generally realized. In part, this 
explains Mr. Taft's rise to power ; and, at the same 
time, it gives him a great opportunity. Can we not 
now shake off a large part of the incubus which the 
civil war left resting on our politics for over a 
generation? Mr. Taft has stood firmly for the 
essential rights of a colored race in the Philippines. 
At the same time, he would not confer on them 
political rights and duties far in advance of their 
preparation. And he has a very sympathetic' under- 
standing of the Southern white man's attitude. One 
day in 1905, in the mid-Pacific, a little crowd of 
Congressmen from the North and South were talk- 
ing of the 'race question' with him. The North- 
erners, of the civil-war generation, were stiff in 
the prejudices which had been hardened in the old 
contests over reconstruction. The Southerners, 
young men, though also strong in their particular 
prejudices, could still come halfway in the argu- 
ment. As the party broke up, Mr. Taft said quietly 
to one of them: 'Well, there is one thing that our 
conversation shows us, anyway, and that is, we 
younger men on both sides can get fairly close 
together.' "^ 

1 Taken from "Taft the Administrator," James A. LeRoy in the 
Century Magazine for March, 1910. 



Unto the Last 8 1 

Mr. Taft's thought is further emphasized by a 
few editorial lines taken from a little country weekly 
newspaper a few days ago: "As fast as the South 
can bring itself away from the narrow prejudices 
of sentimental politics, just that fast it will be made 
to blossom like a rose." 

Then we are making substantial progress in an 
educational way. In the American Educational 
Review for May, 1909, we read : 

"What Dr. Elmer Ellsworth Brown, United 
States Commissioner of Education, is pleased to 
term, in his latest report, 'one of the most striking 
educational movements of our time,' is the educa- 
tional campaign now going on in the South, which, 
as Dr. Brown says, 'is making a chapter of surpass- 
ing human interest in the history of American 
civilization.' The public interest in education in the 
South is now vastly greater than that displayed in 
political events, and this, to those familiar with the 
Southern States and Southern people, is regarded 
as a turning of considerable magnitude. Every 
week records a Southern educational event of 
importance. 

"There is a steady increase in State appropria- 
tions, in many instances the school funds having 
been more than doubled during the past three years. 
For example, Tennessee has raised its annual State 
appropriation from $407,644 in 1904 to $1,030,524 
in 1907, and during the same period Georgia went 
from $800,000 to $1,591,441. 

"One of the marked features of the general 
advance is the consolidation of the rural schools, 
la Virginia 200 schools have been consolidated to 
sixty; in four years Tennessee has reduced her 



82 The Highlanders of the South 

number of schools nearly yoo by a process of con- 
solidation ; Florida shows a single colony where 
forty-five schools have been made into fifteen; and 
the number of school districts in Louisiana trans- 
porting pupils to central schools was a year ago 
reported at thirty-seven, with fifty wagonettes used 
in the service. In passing it is worth noting that 
this consolidation and centralization of schools is 
helping along the good roads movement." 

In an area representing about a third of one of 
our Southern mountain States it is estimated that 
more than 100,000 of the adult population, or about 
twenty per cent of the entire population for this 
^area, are unconverted and without a church home. 
This same State as a whole ranks forty-sixth 
in the list of forty-eight States in native- 
bom illiteracy. It pays seven dollars below the 
average per capita for education in the United 
States, and it pays practically nothing for the edu- 
cation and the training of its teachers. Its length 
of school term is less than six months, and it does 
almost nothing for higher education. Below 
seventy per cent of its scholastic population are 
enrolled in its public schools, and below seventy-one 
per cent of the enrolled attend regularly. The cost 
for prisons and courthouses in this State is about 
seventeen per cent more than for school buildings. 
This State is a fair average for all the mountain 
States of the South. 

No one questions but that the solution to the 
problem is largely a matter of education. The 
Church that first plants a little mission among these 
mountains followed by a school is the Church not 
only to receive these people as faithful members, 



ii 



Unto the Last 83 

but it receives the hearty support of those who never 
join any Church, which is often an opening wedge 
for greater work in that community. The moun- 
taineer seldom travels farther than from one ridge 
or valley to another. The church or school to get 
him is the one to come right up to his door and 
show him its beauties and advantages with little or 
no effort on his part. He usually will not go away 
from home to get culture, refinement, education, 
and ethics; they must be brought to him, but not 
on a silver platter. 

No greater work has been done by our Church or 
any other than, through its Home Missions and 
Church Extension Board, placing one hundred 
dollars or more in little mountain churches, thus 
making possible their building. The tragedy of the 
whole matter is that there are not more dollars to 
go in these churches. Just now the writer has in 
mind several churches in course of erection or 
planned each of which must have one hundred 
dollars or more from this Board or fail. And in 
each place a church and the influences going with 
it are badly needed. If the Board but had the 
money ! 

Then there are our schools. No people have 
minds more receptive to education than the three 
classes herein mentioned. But they must have the 
schools placed at their doors. The preparatory 
school can do the greatest good of any school. 
Once the mountaineer gets that much at home, he 
can and often does go away to college and uni- 
versity. The illiteracy in many of our mountain 
sections is appalling. In almost all the mountain 
counties the illiterate voter holds the balance of 



84 The Highlanders of the South 

power in anything like a closely contested election. 
Imagine possible results, if you please ! 

But the possibilities of the mountaineer are great. 
He has back of him generations of almost perfect 
health. His brain is perhaps the most perfect in 
form of that of any people on earth. The elasticity 
of its gray matter is surpassed only by its tenacity. 

From the figures submitted it is seen that the 
State provision for education is wholly inadequate. 
Even in the opinion of the most sanguine and op- 
timistic Southerner the mountain States will not 
for twenty-five years yet, at least, provide adequate 
educational faciUties for these Highlanders of the 
South. Therefore, it is up not only to our own 
Church but to other denominations as well to do 
this. 

Cannot our Church get the ear of the thinking 
North, the farsighted East, and the cosmopolitan 
West in such a way as to move them to give of 
their abundance to the development of the greatest 
latent powers possessed by any peoples? 

A mission and a school mean a chapel and a col- 
lege. They also mean men for India, China, Japan, 
Korea, and the islands of the sea. They mean 
what is even of greater import — men to stay right 
here among these mountains and help make the 
Church a broader and a greater benefactor of the 
human race than it has yet been. O, men of God, 
will ye say us nay? 

Our people can do more than they think for, but 
they are not yet educated to it — they do not yet have 
the vision of the heights they should reach. We 
must help and get help right on until the vision 
comes, as it surely will. 



Unto the Last 85 

A member of a Conference Church Extension 
Board was asked by a Northerner visiting the South 
as a Church official if it would be fair to recommend 
help by the Church Extension Board for the erec- 
tion of a church in a certain small Southern town. 
The Southern member replied in the affirmative, 
much to the surprise of the visiting official, and 

explained himself by saying: 'The class at G 

is able to give to the Board twice the amount asked 
by them as a loan and donation from the Board, 
but they do not believe it. So long as people think 
they are poor they are. We must help until our 
people are educated to see the blessedness of giv- 
ing." 

And thus it is ever with us — the specter of a past 
glory standing in the way of a living duty and 
obligation ! 

Church officials, like government officials, often 
pass through without making close examination of 
the situation. To merely visit an Annual Confer- 
ence does not mean much. But getting out into 
the country with a Methodist circuit-rider means a 
great deal. It means seeing the problem face to 
face, learning how it is solved, and getting a com- 
prehensive view of the great needs of our Church 
to help the people in remote and untrodden places. 
Come ! 

You would be surprised to have a Methodist 
preacher take you into a community far up in the 
mountains where the moral relation of the sexes is 
hardly more sacred than among the lower animals. 
Yet this man is the only preacher to carry a message 
of personal purity and cleanliness of life. Many, 
many such communities have no preacher at all. 



86 'The Highlanders of the South 

And the people are native white Southern moun- 
taineers, too. Many such homes are bare of even 
the commonest furniture and home comforts, not 
having even a comb for the hair, and they almost 
invariably wash the face at the spring branch where 
there is one ! 

But yet even these people are full of sacrifice for 
good once they get the idea — see the vision. Some- 
times when the boy gets the thought that the sister 
should be educated she is sent to school while he 
hires out to the more substantial farmer and helps 
pay her tuition. Is not that a noble spirit — strange 
mixture of good and evil ? Do you not think such 
a dormant spirit among a people to be numbered by 
the hundreds of thousands is worth rendering more 
than latent? Will you not with your money and 
brains and energy help us to do it? Money helps 
much, brains and energy help more, but your pres- 
ence is the greatest asset of all. Come ! See 1 Do ! 







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Neutralizing Agent: Magnesium Oxide 
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' PRESERVATION TECHNOLOGIES. L.K 
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